mikeocd

For the most part, playing how you want is fine. But there’s one area where I cannot stress enough that conventional knowledge is incorrect: the idea that healers shouldn’t DPS is preposterous, and anybody who says otherwise is wrong, wrong wrong.

Final Fantasy XV is out now. One of the draws of FFXIV is the Final Fantasy brand, and so a very large chunk of my friends list have taken a hiatus to go on the road trip of a lifetime. I assume the same is true everywhere, because it’s selling extremely well.

It’s that time of month again: Yoshida hops in front of a camera to tell people what’s coming in the next major content patch. 3.5 will drop in January, and Stormblood is coming ‘early summer’, so this will represent the state of the game for anything up to six months. 3.5 ‘part two’ will drop in March, but if it’s anything like 2.55, it won’t have a huge amount of content in it outside of some story quests.

It’s safe to say that The Binding Coil of Bahamut series is one of the best raids in any modern MMO. Whether or not you like FFXIV, there’s a hell of a lot to admire. The encounter design is great: it’s hard to look at the fight with Bahamut and not be awed, and everyone who’s done the fourth stage has memories of Twintania’s divebombs. But, more to the point, the story is fantastic.

Final Fantasy XIV is a traditional kind of MMO. It adheres rigidly to the holy trinity of tank, DPS, and healer, and making it easy enough to jump into.

Another month, another FFXIV patch: 3.45 brings gifts including a new season of ranked PvP and the next part of the relic weapon quest chain. But the most significant addition is the update to Palace of the Dead, the “deep dungeon” that debuted a couple of patches ago. Previously limited to 50 floors, it now goes on for a whopping 200. But where exactly are we headed? “Hellsward,” the unlock screen declares, playing with the title of the last expansion.